


Nerve Taps

by readriterith



Series: Spring Fling [4]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-25
Updated: 2013-04-25
Packaged: 2017-12-09 11:14:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/773563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/readriterith/pseuds/readriterith
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Lydia takes ballet for her parents, but she takes tap for herself.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nerve Taps

**Author's Note:**

> With many thanks to subconsciousonparade.tumblr.com, who was invaluable in helping me with this. This also exists in the same verse as _Cavalier_ , where Boyd's mother owns and operates a ballet studio.

Lydia takes ballet for her parents, but she takes tap for herself.

Lydia's parents start her out early, driving the half an hour from their house put her into the academy two towns over.  Even when Mrs. Boyd opens up her academy from where the old dojo used to be (an activity Lydia participated in only long enough to learn how to effectively take someone down and then never went again), her parents insist on the extra drive, saying that only the best is good enough.  Lydia spends the hour long round-trip sitting in the back seat working on whatever project is holding her interest at the time, although when asked about what she's thinking she always tells her parents she is just excited about her class.

Ballet is nice, but it isn't _challenging_ for her; she is too used to the fluidity of ballet from watching her parents interact with clients at every dinner function she has been forced to go to.  She cannot look at the leaps and spins without thinking it rings false, cannot stop herself from remembering all of the adults who ever called her "precocious" in their most condescending tone.

She learns about tap from an elementary school talent show: the girl performing right before her has shoes in her hands that Lydia doesn't recognize, with sliver plating at the ball of the foot and at the heel.  When she goes to perform, Lydia can hear the clack of the shoes striking the stage, and suddenly Lydia desperately wants to learn how to make the same noise and dance the same way.  When the two girls receive their awards, Lydia obviously winning 1st place and the other girl placing in 2nd, Lydia tacks on her brightest smile and congratulates her on her dance.  Lydia will look at the talent show program later to find out what style of dance she performed.  It wouldn't do to just ask her outright, and a few short hours later she has her answer: _tap dancing_.

The ballet academy her parents drive her to specifically specializes in ballet, so she takes to word-of-mouth, gossiping with some of the girls in her year to finally find out that either she can wait until Mrs. Boyd finishes her ballet school, since _Amy heard from Olive that Veronica, one of the Boyd twins, was excited that her momma's school was gonna have ballet on the weekdays and Saturdays but tap on Sundays_ , or go to the school that the 2nd place girl goes to.  She isn't particularly interested dancing with people who've already lost to her, but she thinks it will serve her well until Mrs. Boyd's studio gets up and running.  It's easy enough to get out of the house on practice days; she just tells her mother one thing and her father another, and Beacon Hills is a safe enough town that no one will even notice her absence.

Tap is... different from ballet, in all the ways that matter.  Tap is all movement and sound and the learning curve is harsh, but she loves the fast pace, the clacking noise she makes when her feet hit the ground the way.  She finds out that there are two types of tap dancing, and even that works for her, because while show tap is the flashy one, the one in heels and easier to look good while doing it, rhythm tap is what she practices, flat shoes and more complicated movement and all about precise movements.  It has all the difficulties of ballet, with its own flash-bang reality.

She tells her parents that she's been tap dancing during the divorce proceedings; her parents spend so much time arguing with each other over who should have already known that Lydia never gets into trouble.

She refuses to even call herself a tapper in the privacy of her mind until she's been at Mrs. Boyd's school for three years; the other studio going under once Mrs. Boyd started to really attract customers.  Lydia never even sees the other children who would be taking ballet; she doesn't even meet one of Mrs. Boyd's children until the second year, when Veronica Boyd tells her solemnly that the Boyd children all exclusively dance ballet.  Working with Mrs. Boyd is relaxing, because she's honest with her critique and refuses to let any of her students rest on their laurels.  Lydia finds herself working harder in tap than she has in any of her classes for years.  She is still the best in the class, but Mrs. Boyd keeps her competing with herself instead.  

At the end of the summer before the year that will completely change her life, Mrs. Boyd tells her she's proud of Lydia's accomplishments.  It will be the last time she dances for a while.


End file.
